Youth Challenges eBook

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself—­a
growd woman like you—­makin’ me all
this nuisance. I sha’n’t put up with
it. You’ll go packin’ to the horspittle,
that’s what you’ll do. Mark my word.”

Mrs. Moody’s method of packing Ruth off to the
hospital was unique. It consisted of running
herself for the doctor. It consisted of listening
with bated breath to his directions; it consisted of
giving up almost wholly the duties—­A conducting
her boarding house, and in making gruels and heating
water and sitting in Ruth’s room wielding a
fan over Ruth’s ungrateful face. It consisted
in spending of her scant supply of money for medicines,
in constant attendance and patient, faithful nursing—­accompanied
by sharp scoldings and recriminations uttered in a
monotone guaranteed not to disturb the sick girl.
Perhaps she really fancied she was being hard and
unsympathetic and calloused. She talked as if
she were, but no single act was in tune with her words.
... She grumbled—­and served. She
complained—­and hovered over Ruth with clumsy,
gentle hands. She was afraid somebody might think
her tender. She was afraid she might think so
herself. ... The world is full of Mrs. Moodys.

Ruth lay day after day with no change, half conscious,
wholly listless. ... It seemed to Mrs. Moody
to be nothing but a waiting for the end. But
she waited for the end as though the sick girl were
flesh of her flesh, protesting to heaven against the
imposition, ceaselessly.

CHAPTER XXXII

If Bonbright’s handling of the Hammil casualty
created a good impression among the men, his stand
against the unions more than counterbalanced it.
He was able to get no nearer to the men. Perhaps,
as individuals became acquainted with him, there was
less open hostility manifested, but there remained
suspicion, resentment, which Bonbright was unable
to convert into friendship and co-operation.

The professor of sociology peered frequently at Bonbright
through his thick spectacles with keen interest.
He found as much enjoyment in studying his employer
as he did in working over his employer’s plan.
Frequently he discussed Bonbright with Mershon.

“He’s a strange young man,” he said,
“an instructive psychological study. Indeed
he is. One cannot catalogue him. He is made
up of opposites. Look you, Mershon, at his eagerness
to better the conditions of his men—­that’s
why I’m abandoning classes of boys who ought
to be interested in what I teach them, but aren’t—­and
then place beside it his antagonism to unionism. ...”

Mershon was interested at that instant more in the
practical aspects of the situation. “The
unions are snapping at our heels. Bricklayers,
masons, structural steel, the whole lot. I’ve
been palavering with them—­but I’m
about to the end of my rope. We’ve needed
men and we’ve got a big sprinkling of union
men. Wages have attracted them. I’m
afraid we’ve got too many, so many the unions